Sea Song
by yatagarasuoh
Summary: The ocean whispers a story of one of its own and one of the sky. YoReki


**Sea Song**

The sea carves sorrow into the bones, tracing deep valleys of memory and dragging through thorns of hurt. The water makes one remember, remember the ebbing of waves etching closure over skin. It wrings the memories of the scouring of identity, the curvature of letters disappearing into blossoms of runny ink and lost records. To some, the sea is the cool relief that they need against their skin, the reassurance that perhaps somewhere beyond the expanse of lulling crests and troughs, their hopes and dreams are still there. To Yogi, though, the coolness becomes a burning acidity, and the gentle lapping at bitter shorelines becomes bony, desperate fingers around his neck.

Yogi—he is of the light. He belongs where the city lights around are grounded stars during the night and garish neon nestles in the strands of his fair hair. The faint trace of city smog is a comforting touch at his fingertips, and the sights of towering buildings and the blaze of luminescence from glass window shops define the brilliance in his eyes. He belongs with the crowd where company is not sparse and he can lose bad thoughts under the tread of rushed footsteps.

Gareki—Gareki though, he carries a steely unfamiliarity in his gait, and the lines of his stiff shoulders are the bends of ocean waves under the midnight moon. His mood is the shift of tides, and there is a deep and terrifying clarity in the numb black of his gaze. Controlled. Empty.

"Gareki-kun," says Yogi. "Are you feeling alright?" Unconsciously, he reaches out towards black hair, catching himself just as an even stare turns to face him. The realization that he wants to touch the boy in front of him—hold him dear, feel the scrape of skin under blunt nails—surprises Yogi. Scares him, almost.

"If you're talking about what happened at Rinoll," Gareki starts. "Just drop it already. I told you it was fine, didn't I?" And it's interesting, really. Gareki comes from the waters, and yet his words are always sharp and articulate, angular. His eyes are a brooding dark, and they flash the most mysterious, alluring shade of blue only in the right lighting.

Yogi inhales softly, clenches his fists, bites his lip. "I'm sorry."

There is no verbal response but the slightest sliver of the ocean glints from around Gareki's pupil. It is lacking and at the same time it is enough. Silence grazes past the nape of Yogi's neck, and he struggles to breathe. For a second, it had felt as if cold depths were being shoved down his throat, fingers squeezing tightly. But Yogi turns, watches broad shoulders fade into the distance. He doesn't like water, not with how it twists and contorts and writhes. Not with its scalding and freezing tendencies. And yet he needs it to live. The frightening slant of reality is not blurred behind watery edges. (Yogi lets the water fill his lungs, wraps it around his body like unquenchable thirst. Because his mind says he hates it, the wetness. But the tightness in his chest pulls him towards currents and a forcibly blank, horrendously ebony gaze).

So, he drowns.

* * *

There are moments where a fatal sluggishness creeps into Gareki's bones. Yogi knows this because he sees the slump of spine, the despondent sigh that parts pale lips. It is at those times that he truly does not know what to do. And having the knowledge that he doesn't know, it stings. Once again the acid eats away at him, but Yogi reaches out even further. Sometimes he wades out too far by himself, and it is frightening since the waters are constantly rising, trapping him within misunderstandings and unknown feelings. Sometimes Yogi brushes his fingers against Gareki, shocked at the cold hardness of his young body. It feels nothing like water. And yet, it does. It does in the way that water breaks bones when one is too far down, too deep. It does in the way it shatters flesh when one falls from heights too high.

Even so, Yogi extends his hands, sifts through the floating sands and golden debris. He learns that the ocean is both stubborn and yielding, eyes gentle only in sleep, distant and hollow during the day. After missions, when they've come back (home) with reports both long and short, Yogi wonders about the sea's secrets. It's the biggest, grandest, thing around him, and yet he knows almost nothing about the ghosts of thought beneath the rippling surface.

"When you leave," the words stick to his tongue, unwilling to part. "Where will you go back to? Karasuna? School, maybe?"

Gareki is quiet. The turbulence in the tides still. "You don't need to know that." And maybe it's a mistake, but there is a subtle hint of loneliness in Gareki's voice. "Why would you even care?"

But Yogi does care. He cares so much that there are some instances when he feels he will suffocate. His legs are unsteady as he wades in even deeper, holding his breath. "You could always stay here! It could be your home. We're all here, aren't we? We're all here for each other, and I'm—I'm happy when you're here. That you're here. Even though it hurts a lot and I'm biased and don't know any places you could possibly return to—"

Wrong. He does know. It's a bitter, bitter feeling that's rooted into his heart. A heart a little too big, a little too caring, (a little too empty). Yogi has always tried to ignore it, push it aside, but there are still traces of oceanspray along the fine lines of Gareki's countenance. The sound of Gareki shifting is the ebb of ocean from the shore. Like Yogi, Gareki has tried to forget the past, but the past grows and the future diminishes. Every inhale and every exhale becomes history, and Yogi is left staring into the distance, the sky reflected and refracted off of a restless mirror.

"I don't have a place to return to," says Gareki. It is a lie.

But Yogi smiles, he says okay with regret and resent driving his heart up his throat. The dull ache in his chest spreads to his fingers, and for a moment he loses control. He touches skin, brushes aside messy hair, drags nails down fiber. Sorry, he mouths. I'm not, he screams. Gareki does not say anything, and takes Yogi's hand off his cheek. Yogi's palm is cold, but where fingers had dug in, it hurts, it burns.

Gareki steps away, disappears beneath the currents, the roll of waves. And despite everything (the pain, the fear, nothing), Yogi follows. Underneath the depths of a scattered, fragmented heaven, the chill sinks heavily into his spine. When he breathes in, the water is bittersweet. When he breathes out, (he gives in).


End file.
